


If I Shiver

by Amelia_Clark



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (but no feathers), Anal Sex, Castiel (Supernatural)'s True Form, Episode Related, Episode: s10e18 Book of the Damned, Kissing, Longing, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 17:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13575081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amelia_Clark/pseuds/Amelia_Clark
Summary: Dean makes it til just after midnight before he chokes on a laugh, and he knows the next time he opens his mouth something else will come out: a snarl, a scream, a sob. And that'd ruin everybody's night, and he ain't gonna do that, not when there's finally good news for a change—sure, they had to ditch the Book, but even if Dean's not getting back to his old self anytime soon, Cas is angeled up again, and that's worth celebrating. So Dean finishes his last beer (is that six or seven?), mumbles something about being tired, and heads for his room.





	If I Shiver

**Author's Note:**

> I was just gonna write a little wingfic, I don't know what happened.

Dean makes it til just after midnight before he chokes on a laugh, and he knows the next time he opens his mouth something else will come out: a snarl, a scream, a sob. And that'd ruin everybody's night, and he ain't gonna do that, not when there's finally good news for a change—sure, they had to ditch the Book, but even if Dean's not getting back to his old self anytime soon, Cas is angeled up again, and that's worth celebrating. So Dean finishes his last beer (is that six or seven?), mumbles something about being tired, and heads for his room.

He hasn't been tired in weeks, though, the Mark like a 24/7 cocaine drip, down to the stale metallic taste in the back of his throat. He rarely even tries to sleep at all; he listens to records, he cleans his guns, he jacks off. Sometimes, although he'd only admit it under duress, he does sudoku (Donna's suggestion). On the rare occasions he can get drunk enough to pass out—and it takes a hell of a lot more than six or seven beers—he dreams of blood, or he dreams of fucking Cas, and he can't decide which one is worse.

Cas doesn't sleep either, of course, and he knocks on Dean's door around two, cracking it open after he does so. “I wanted to say goodnight,” he says, eyes flickering over Dean where's he stretched out on the bed. “Did I wake you up?”

Dean snorts, sets his puzzle book on the nightstand. “You know you didn't.”

“Yes,” Cas says, “I know.” He looks at his hand on the doorknob for a moment, jiggles it back and forth. “Can I—may I try to help? I can't heal you, but perhaps I can give you a night's rest.”

Dean sighs and sits up, leans back against the headboard. “You can _try,_ dude.”

Cas nods, looking pleased, and comes in, closing the door behind him and crossing to sit on the edge of Dean's mattress. He took off his suit coat at some point, loosened his collar and tie; Dean stares at the vulnerable skin in the hollow of his throat and wonders what Cas would do if he leaned forward and put his mouth on it. He wonders whether, if he did it, it'd be to kiss or to bite.

Slowly, carefully, like Dean's a stray dog who might be rabid (and hell, that ain't far off), Cas moves into his space and lifts a hand to Dean's cheek. Dean manages not to flinch away, doesn't turn his head and kiss Cas's palm either. “How come you never heal Sam like this?” he asks.

“You're different,” Cas says simply, and Dean doesn't ask him how. Because as long as Dean never mentions it—the difference of them, the way they stand too close and look too long, the way Cas is looking at him now—it's not happening, and if it's not happening, Dean can't fuck it up.

Cas closes his eyes, and the blue-white of his grace lights up his eyelashes; Dean watches them flutter, and lets grace fill him, cool along his nerve endings, until it meets the hot scar of the Mark. For just a second, it feels really, really good, like a cold beer after a hard day's work, and then all at once it hurts _bad_. He jerks away, clocking his head on the wall and seeing stars. When his head clears, he realizes it must've hurt Cas, too—he's clenching and unclenching the hand that was on Dean's face, eyes wide in shock.

“Mark didn't like that, huh?” says Dean.

“It did not. I had hoped, with my own grace, I would be able to ease your burden a little.” Cas's gaze falls to Dean's forearm, where the Mark's hidden under the flannel. “It's not enough. Helping you is beyond my power, Dean, I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” Dean says. “I'm not your job to fix.”

“Then what good am I?” Cas says bitterly. “What good is having my grace back if I'm no good to you?”

“Hey, hey!” Dean leans towards him impulsively, puts a hand on his shoulder. “Cas, man, it does me a hell of a lot of good to see you back at max, but it don't matter what I think anyway. You deserve this, you gotta enjoy it. Fluff your feathers a little.”

Cas frowns at him suddenly, cocks his head, and Dean's mouth goes dry—Cas has changed so much, he's been God and he's been human, but he never stops cocking his head like that when he doesn't get Dean's reference. It's a small, reliable comfort, like Sam's disapproving face. “Are you under the impression I have feathers?” Cas asks.

“Uh, don't you?” Dean says, surprised. “You have wings.”

“In a sense, yes, but Dean, I'm not a _bird,”_ huffs Cas, and he looks so offended by the suggestion that Dean can't help it—he starts laughing again, for real. And keeps laughing while Cas scowls at him, finally trailing off into giggles; the air in the room feels different somehow, warmer and lighter, and Dean takes a deep breath. The Mark stirs, settles.

“Sorry, Cas, don't mean to offend,” he says, biting the inside of his cheek to keep the grin off his face. “You just—you look like a grumpy owl when you're frowning like that, dude.” Before he can keep himself from doing it, he reaches out, ruffling Cas's hair into his old pre-apocalypse bedhead to complete the picture; Cas rolls his eyes upwards to follow Dean's fingers, and smiles with half of his mouth. Dean's suddenly tense again. “Uh.” He scratches the back of his neck. “What do you mean, 'in a sense'? I've seen your wings, they sure look like they've got feathers.”

“What you see is not what they are, Dean. You have to understand, in my true form, I'm not corporeal, I'm a...vector of divine will. Energy, force, purpose. The angel 'wings' you've seen are a metaphor, a symbol of their, our, ability to move through every point in creation at once. It's how we travel—until Metatron shut us out of Heaven, it was simply a matter of choosing where to be out of the infinite possibilities available, collapsing the wave function. But that's not something the human mind is capable of grasping, so to represent that potential, that freedom of movement, it was decided that we would appear to have wings. They're not literal. I don't _flap_ them.”

“Huh,” says Dean. Cas is right, he only sort of grasps that. Sam might—he'd gone through a phase where he'd only read “hard sci-fi,” but Dean just made boner jokes at his expense. “Didn't angels used to have a bunch of wings back in the day? In the Bible you guys are all wheels of fire and too many eyes.” Dean's glad of that, that Cas showed up looking like an unfairly hot accountant instead, because frankly the old-school seraphs sound pants-shittingly terrifying.

“Yes, that's an older metaphor, meant to be—awesome, in the literal sense. As humans changed their symbols, we adapted.”

“So no feathers, then.”

“No feathers.”

“You're still driving that shitty Lincoln, though. You, uh, you still can't fly?”

“No.” Cas shifts uncomfortably on the bed, and it occurs to Dean they're sitting way closer than they ever would if Sam and Charlie were in the room. “Metatron's spell disrupted the entire structure of Heaven and its inhabitants. Even with my own grace, my wings aren't functional.”

“Fuck, I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault, Dean. Not everything is your fault.”

Dean laughs; it's hollow even to his own ears. “Sounds fake, but okay.”

“Would you like to see them?” Cas asks abruptly.

“What?”

“I want to show you my wings,” Cas says.

Dean's trying not to think about birds, but he can't help it; there's a video Charlie sent him once, David Attenborough being interrupted by a bird of paradise, jumping up and down and flashing its crazy-bright plumage in a mating display. That's not what Cas means. He just got 'em back, of course he wants to show them off. “Sure,” he says. “Knock yourself out.”

A mighty rustling fills the room, and then they're just _there,_ these huge, ragged silver wings, arcing out from Cas's shoulders in a sweep from wall to wall. They don't quite stay put in Dean's vision, blinking in and out; they're there and not there, and so beautiful, even in their dilapidated state, Dean forgets how to breathe.

“Can I touch them?” he asks, and knows immediately from the look on Cas's face it's an intimate request. “Uh. Is that okay, will it hurt because of the Mark?”

“I'm not sure,” says Cas. “Even without it, I don't know exactly what would happen if you touched my actual substance unmediated by a vessel.”

Dean translates that and understands with a jolt that he's never actually touched Cas before, not the real him, the vast and unknowable Other he calls his best friend. Even with the evidence in front of him, he's forgotten how not-human Cas really is. “What do you _think_ might happen?”

“It might be painful, for one or both of us. Your arm might catch fire. On the other hand, it may not even be possible for you to make contact with my wings—they don't take up space in a way you could comprehend. In any case I wouldn't risk it.”

“Nah,” says Dean, suddenly certain. “It'll be fine, I'll just do it for a second. Please?” It's a dumbass thing to do, and Dean knows it, but he's made worse decisions lately.

Cas nods, looking wary, and Dean does.

It doesn't hurt. It's the weirdest sensation Dean's ever experienced, though—he can see his hand, outspread on the shimmering plane of Cas's wing, but it doesn't feel like he's touching anything; instead, there's a jittery undercurrent of static in his molars, a quicksilver itch filling his fingers. Closing his eyes to narrow his focus, he moves his hand just a little, and sighs. His mind blurs with rapid-fire images, a grand tour of the friggin' universe: a thousand smoldering suns, whole planets devoured by endless storms, the dusty distance between stars.

“Dean,” says Cas. His voice is hoarse, and Dean's eyes fly open. 

Shit, Cas is close. He's looking at Dean with wide blue eyes; Dean thinks he's shaking a little. “Is this—am I hurting you?” asks Dean. He licks his lips, watches Cas's gaze track the movement.

“No,” Cas says, then surges forward and kisses him.

Dean's known for years that if he kissed Cas once he wouldn't be able to stop—hell, that's probably part of why he's never done it—and it's not fair for Cas to do it for him, but Dean kisses back anyway, grabs Cas's shirt in both fists and hauls Cas into his lap, bringing his hands back up to frame his face. He's dimly aware of the Mark, that it's incensed he's touching Cas without violence, but it's drowned out by the beat of his own heart.

Cas makes a frustrated noise and bites at Dean's lower lip before gently, firmly putting Dean's hand back on his wing; Dean sinks into it again, that uncanny not-feeling, while Cas works a knee between his and bears down. That's probably his dick poking into Dean's hip, and Dean's struck with a wave of lust so fierce it leaves him faint. Summoning all his strength, he pulls back a fraction of an inch. “Are you sure about this, buddy?” he asks, feeling like a complete tool.

Cas is panting, wild, restless fingers stroking over the hollow of Dean's throat, plucking at the button between his collarbones. He rolls his hips deliberately, wet mouth parted. “Let me touch you,” he says. “Dean, please.”

“Cas, come on, slow down a sec,” says Dean. “I need to know you really know what you're asking. That you want this.”

“Dean,” Cas says, in a tone that clearly conveys _don't be an idiot._ “Yes, I want you. I've wanted you for a long time.” He frowns. “I thought you knew that.”

And Dean could protest that he doesn't know, but he's not stupid—he's spent so long wanting to fuck Cas, he knows what it looks like. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Cas tugs Dean's top button open and stops, palm pressed to Dean's chest. “I didn't know that's what it was, for a long time. I knew I loved you, and loved you differently than the rest of my Father's creations, but I thought it was just more intense. It wasn't until I was human that I understood how carnal my desires really were.” His voice drops on the word _carnal,_ right into the pit of Dean's stomach. “I lay there across the room from you, that night in Rexford, and I knew what it was to want.”

 _That night in Rexford._ Dean remembers that night—he'd given Cas the bed, thrown a pillow on the floor, and spent half the night wanting to crawl in beside him, get him out of his clothes, put his hands on him everywhere. But he knew he'd leave in the morning, that he wouldn't take Cas back to the bunker with him—and Dean Winchester may be a sorry sonofabitch, but he ain't a monster. Well. He wasn't then.

Dean looks away, down at Cas's hand on his ribs. Yep, that's his dick all right—Dean can see the shape of it through his slacks. Fascinated, he runs a knuckle up the side of it, feels Cas shiver above him. “I wanted you too,” Dean says, and clears his throat. “Want you.”

“What do you want, Dean?”

First of all, Dean wants to kiss him again, so he does, keeps kissing him; he can't remember why it seemed so important to deny himself this. Cas groans and starts unbuttoning Dean's shirt again—he gets impatient halfway through and pushes it up into his armpits, and Dean shucks it off the rest of the way, lying back and pulling Cas along by his tie, and thinks about how far he wants to take this.

If this had happened a year ago _(why didn't it happen a year ago?),_ Dean would've been satisfied with jerking each other off, maybe asked Cas to go down on him. But when Dean was a demon, well, he didn't care so much about anyone knowing he liked dick, and just because he fucked plenty of women doesn't mean he didn't let a few guys turn the tables. It'd been nice, for once, getting his ass pounded into next week without hating himself afterwards.

That ain't gonna happen here. He's gonna do it anyway.

Cas makes a soft sound, somewhere between a whimper and a growl, and licks Dean's collarbone. “What do you want?” he asks again. “Tell me.”

Okay, if Dean can ask for this, and he can—why not? he's already ruined everything if it's gonna be ruined at all—he can't ask for it very loud. So he draws Cas's ear down next to his mouth, mumbles, “Will you fuck me?” 

“All right,” says Cas, and he _grins:_ not the crooked, closed-mouth curve Dean's used to, but a wide and gummy grin, like he can't believe his luck. Dean can't remember the last time someone looked at him like that in bed. “I'll need lubricant,” Cas says, unbuckling Dean's belt.

“Oh, look who knows so much,” says Dean, impressed despite himself. “You've come a long way from the pizza man.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Dean, I was stationed on Earth for thousands of years. I've been to the brothel district in Pompeii, did you really think I was confused by pay-per-view?” He yanks Dean's fly open, ghosts his fingers over his dick where it strains his boxers. “I had an inconvenient erection and needed a cover.”

“You _what?”_

“Dean.” Cas works his hand further into Dean's pants and wraps it around him. “Do you want to talk about this right now, or do you want me to fuck you?”

“Okay, okay! Bossy.” There's lube under the bed somewhere, or at least there'd better be; Dean hangs over the side to look for it while Cas busies himself getting Dean's pants and boxers the rest of the way off, mouthing at his exposed hipbone. “You, uh, you got a lotta moves for an almost-virgin,” Dean tells him, and tosses him the sticky bottle.

“I'm motivated to do this well, I plan to do it again,” says Cas, and kisses him. Dean fumbles at the front of Cas's slacks and Cas swats it away. “No. Touch my wings.” There's a whoosh of air and motion too fast for Dean to follow as Cas brings them forward, stretching them over their heads to shade the bed in a way Dean would find unsettling if he weren't so turned on. As it is, he arches his back with a moan and runs his hands out along them as far as he can reach, smiles into Cas's mouth at the noise he makes.

“You like that, huh?”

“Yes,” says Cas breathlessly. “I didn't—I would not have anticipated—Dean, don't stop.”

“I won't if you won't.”

Cas hikes Dean's knees up and works him open quickly but thoroughly, like he's been doing this forever; Dean swears and tosses his head from side to side like it's the first time he's ever been touched. He really wants to get his hands on Cas's dick, or unbutton his shirt, _something_ —but, obedient, he keeps touching his wings instead, stroking and grasping until he thinks he can actually feel them, a soft, electric presence on his skin.

By the time Cas finally shoves his pants to his knees and slides into him, Dean's mind has gone blank—no, the opposite: it's full, so filled with Cas, with what they're doing, that there's no room for anything else. Even the Mark seems muted, a bonfire flickering in the distance instead of an inferno in Dean's veins. Cas starts to move, slow and sure, and kisses Dean's throat as he shivers and writhes. 

When Dean's hands reach the spot where Cas's wings merge into his back, Cas sighs and flexes, shoulder blades shifting beneath his shirt. There's no perceptible rip in the fabric; the wings just pass through it like it doesn't exist, and Dean wonders what he'd feel if Cas had actually gotten naked. Would there be a seam there, where the angel becomes the man? “I need more,” he pleads, “Cas, c'mon, you've still got your damn clothes on.”

Cas renders him speechless with a well-aimed thrust, then splays a hand over the small of Dean's back and lifts him like he's made out of air, bringing Dean along to straddle him as he settles back on his heels. Dean whimpers a little as his legs spread wider and Cas goes deeper; he scrabbles at the buttons of Cas's shirt and Cas lets him undo them, push it open and press their skin together. Cas's wings surround them, closing them in like an otherworldly curtain, and the two of them are all that's left in Dean's world, just Cas fucking Dean hard and holding him close.

Dean's never had sex that felt like this; he's simultaneously more present in his body than usual, all his nerves lit up and singing, and in another place entirely, a place that's not a where or a when but somehow, impossibly, a _who._ Cas digs his fingers into the meat of Dean's thighs and goes hell for leather, and Dean holds onto his wings for dear life, meeting his thrusts halfway. He's dimly aware he's making too much noise—his throat is getting raw, and he doesn't want the others to overhear—but it feels too damn good to keep quiet.

“Dean,” Cas keeps saying, as if it's the only word he knows. His eyes are starting to glow blue.

“Hey, Cas, be careful, don't get carried away.” Dean's starting to feel it again, the cool relief of grace winding through his bloodstream, and with his hands on Cas's wings it's even more intense. But it doesn't turn, like it did before, doesn't become pain—instead, the pleasure builds and builds, and Dean realizes dizzily he's going to come without a hand on his dick, that he'll be lucky if he can still stand up afterwards.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He'd swear the room was shaking.

Wait, no, the room is definitely actually shaking. “What the hell?” he pants, but Cas looks just as baffled, face creased with confusion as he shudders through his own orgasm. The light bulb overhead shatters, and Cas screams.

The earthquake, if that's what it is, subsides as they cling to each other in shock. “What the hell?” Dean asks again. “Did we—was that us?”

“I think so,” Cas says. “I don't know how, but Dean—my wings are gone.”

“Holy shit, what?” Cas is right—Dean's clutching at the back of his shirt instead. “Are you okay?”

“I'm not sure. I think—I think I may be human.” He moves suddenly, grabs at Dean's left arm. “Look,” he says, wonder in his voice. “The Mark is gone too.”

Dean stares at the unblemished skin of his forearm, disbelieving. “Did...did you _fuck it off of me?”_

Before Cas can answer, the door is flung open, and Sam and Charlie burst in.

There's no way this isn't exactly what it looks like. Cas's tie has migrated around to the back of his collar; Dean's still straddling him, frozen. He could not more obviously have a dick up his ass if it said so in neon above his head.

Charlie yelps and slaps a hand over her own eyes; Sam becomes very interested in the ceiling. Dean scrambles backwards off Cas's lap and shoves a pillow in front of his junk. “Whatever happened to knocking?”

“An _earthquake_ happened, Dean,” says Charlie without removing her hand. There's a quiet jingle as Cas pulls his pants up. “And a scream. We were just making sure you were okay!”

“Are you okay?” Sam asks.

“We're both human,” Cas says, turning to face them. “I don't know how, but I believe my grace has annihilated itself to extinguish the Mark.”

Charlie's jaw drops. “Oh my God. Are you saying I got shot stealing the Book and all you two had to do was hop the express train to Bonetown?”

Sam opens his mouth to say something, thinks better of it, runs a weary hair through his hair. “I guess it's something we hadn't tried,” he says. “I'm going back to sleep.”

“I want details in the morning, Winchester,” Charlie hisses as she follows Sam out.

Dean groans and falls back on the bed. “She's never gonna let me forget this,” he says. “Neither is Sam. He's gonna want me to come out to him or something.”

“You don't have to if you don't want to,” Cas murmurs, stretching out beside him, and Dean laughs and laughs.

There's still shit to figure out—how this happened, where they go next—but for now, Dean's tired, and he thinks he might be happy. He hasn't been happy in so long he's not sure.

Dean falls asleep in Castiel's arms, and he dreams of wings.

**Author's Note:**

> _If I swallow anything evil_   
>  _Put your finger down my throat_   
>  _If I shiver, please give me a blanket_   
>  _Keep me warm, let me wear your coat_
> 
>  
> 
> "Behind Blue Eyes," The Who


End file.
